Parasitism in heterogeneous landscapes: Association between conserved habitats and gastrointestinal parasites in populations of wild mammals.

Parasites constitute essential elements of biodiversity, playing fundamental roles for the functioning and configuration of any ecosystem. The continuous and accelerated human expansion into previously pristine territories is changing landscape structure and climatic regimes that could alter host - parasite dynamics. We explore the influence of landscape structure and habitat quality on gastrointestinal parasites in several species of mammals inhabiting remnants of tall evergreen forest within a matrix of anthropic vegetation.

Forest maturity has a stronger influence on the prevalence of spider monkeys than howler monkeys in an anthropogenically impacted rainforest landscape.

The transformation and depletion of primary forest over the past few decades have placed almost half of the world's primate species under the threat of extinction. Developing any successful conservation program for primates requires distribution and demography data, as well as an understanding of the relationships between these factors and their habitat. Between March and June 2010 and 2011 we collected data on the presence and demographic parameters of howler and spider monkeys by carrying out surveys, and validated our findings using local knowledge.